


Left Alone

by Deannie



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1997-07-02
Updated: 1997-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 12:09:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Simon is the target of a vendetta, Jim gets caught in the crossfire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Left Alone

Captain Simon Banks had been in a blue funk for days, and it was getting to the point where none of his detectives dared to enter his office without a strong reason and a bulletproof vest. What was pissing him off, nobody knew--they just knew that none of them wanted to be on the receiving end of the captain's blistering anger.

Jim Ellison sat quietly at his desk, looking up as Simon stalked into the bullpen and headed for his office. The captain's entrance wasn't accompanied by any of the usual greetings from his staff, and Jim almost had to smile as Brown neatly side-stepped Simon's advance.

Jim continued to listen. Once safely in his office, the captain shut his door firmly, walked to the coffee machine in the corner, cursing under his breath, and flipped the switch.

 

Simon cursed lightly. Damnit. He'd left the coffee machine with fresh grounds in it  _again_  yesterday. It was getting so he couldn't even remember to brew that second pot of coffee, much less clean the damn thing out at night.

Well, at least the unbrewed grounds weren't too old. He didn't bother to throw them out, just checked that there was water in the reservoir, and flipped on the switch, waiting for that first cup of the day--hoping that today, it would actually make a dent in his mood.

 _Fat chance,_  he snarled mentally. This mood wasn't going away until Joan realized that Daryl was as much his son as he was hers. These power plays of hers weren't doing the kid any good--and they were keeping Simon from spending time with the one good thing that their failed marriage had produced.

Brown knocked on the door tentatively, just as Simon turned to fill his mug with the Colombian blend that his cousin had sent him. He drank down a bit of it gratefully before growling for Brown to enter. The brew was slightly bitter, and he grimaced at it. Oh well, the rest of his life was crap, why should his coffee be any different?

"Sir," Brown started tensely. "Here's those files you asked for on the Matrick case."

Simon took another sip of coffee, gesturing impatiently for Brown to just put the file on his desk and get the hell out. He almost grinned in satisfaction as the younger man swallowed nervously, dropped the folder, and ran.

Almost...

Damn! He must be getting bad when even his own  _detectives_  were afraid of him! He'd better calm down soon, or he was going to blow an artery...

The thought brought a grim smirk to his lips--a smirk that was wiped away as his phone rang for the first-- _and certainly not the last,_  he whined internally--time that day. He wrenched the receiver from it's base.

 

"Banks!"

Jim sat at his desk, keeping tabs on his captain, and he wanted to smile at Simon's bark as the captain answered the phone. But today, the captain had a bite as well. Whatever was bothering the guy had better be cleared up soon, or Major Crimes might be looking for a new captain. Jim had been afraid, the last couple of times he'd gone into Simon's office, that the older man would blow an artery soon, if he didn't calm down.

"What?!" the captain asked tensely. "When?"

A concern in Simon's still irritated tone caught Jim's ear, and he zeroed in carefully, not so tightly that he could hear the party on the other end of the line, but enough that he could hear some of the wind going out of Simon's sails.

"Okay... How bad is he?"  _He who?_  Jim thought. Had something happened to Daryl, maybe? Why hadn't Simon told him? The thought was dispelled by the captain's next question. "Do they know what kind of poison? How it was administered?" Simon was getting angry again, and Jim didn't need to have Sentinel hearing to catch the next question.

"Do you people know anything at all!?"

"Jim?"

Ellison felt a familiar hand on his arm, and looked up to find his partner, fresh from an early morning class. The detective had been focused so tightly on his captain that he hadn't heard the anthropologist come in.

Blair nodded toward Simon's office. "He's still in his funk, huh?"

Jim shook his head worriedly, listening as Simon cursed, slammed down his phone, and then began cursing again. "No, Chief... It's something more than that today."

"What do you mean?"

Any answer Jim might have given was cut off by the wrenching open of Simon's door. The captain's eyes looked a little strange as he pegged Jim with a glare. "Ellison! In my office. _Now!_ "

 

Jim sat down before Simon's desk quickly, watching the captain pace and feeling the motions behind his back as Blair shut the door quietly and leaned against it.

Strangely, Simon seemed not to notice that the other two men were even in the room--or so it seemed until the captain started talking.

"Jonas Wilkins from Internal Affairs is in ICU at Cascade General." His eyes came up, meeting Jim's, and the detective could see the anger burning in those deep brown depths.

Jim sat still for a moment. Jonas was a quiet man--more a paper-pusher and generic surrogate father than a cop-chaser. If he was poisoned... "What happened, sir?" he asked tightly.

Simon sighed as he took his chair again, gulping agitatedly at his coffee before pouring another nervous cup and continuing his explanation. Jim wondered what kind of new blend Simon was trying these days. The smell was strange--and just a little bit irritating.

"They don't know what happened, exactly. He collapsed in his office about an hour ago... They took him to General, and the doctors diagnosed it as an acute poisoning."

"What with?" Blair had the temerity to ask.

Simon didn't even seem to notice the kid in the room, but he answered the question angrily. "They haven't figured that out yet. Whatever it was, it shut down his heart and lungs..." His voice dropped as the shock of an attack on one of their own suddenly sank in. "He's on full life support--for now... and the prognosis isn't good."

Ellison took the information in calmly, though he could feel his jaw twitching in absent anger. Jonas had always been a kind soul--the man who had helped Jim through his first IA query into a drug bust gone bad during Jim's first months in Vice... The idea of anyone attacking him didn't bear thinking about.

"So what do you think, Captain?" he asked finally, as Simon finished draining his second cup of coffee. "Some kind of vendetta by a disgruntled ex-cop?"

Simon swallowed quickly and nodded. "Probably." He stood again, pacing in agitation. There was a heavy dread in his chest suddenly at the thought that even an  _ex_ -cop could stoop this low. He turned to Jim, and the sadness in the detective's eyes seemed to make his chest tighten even further. He knew all about Jim's connection to Wilkins, but something tickling at the back of his mind made him take a different tack with his detective.

"Look, Jim," he began carefully. "I know you'll want in on this case, but I want to lay some ground rules first, okay?"

The captain's tone suddenly caused Jim's jaw to clamp down harder--though he couldn't have said what about it bothered him. "Such as?"

Simon--already on the edge from his personal problems--caught on to the belligerence immediately. "I'm just not looking forward to a rerun of what happened when Danny Choi died, Jim. Keep your cool, or I'll hand this case over to someone who can."

Jim went immediately on the offensive, and Blair leaned against the door tensely, listening to Jim defend himself, his actions, and his feelings, while Simon bellowed angrily about proper procedure and due process. What was  _with_  these two this morning? Sure, Simon had been pissing and moaning all week, but that shouldn't have provoked this kind of response in Jim...

"If you don't think I can handle it," Jim was asking coldly, "then why'd you call me in here in the first place?" He turned to the door, and Blair jumped out of his way as the Sentinel brushed past.

"Goddamnit, Ellison!" Simon all but screamed, anger making him breathless. "Get back here right--"

Even Blair heard the tiny gasp of pain, and he looked up in shock, as Simon's face seemed to go immediately gray. By the time Jim had turned around to head back into the captain's office, Simon had slumped down, landing half on his chair, as his lungs seemed suddenly to refuse the air that the captain's body so desperately needed.

"Simon?" Jim rushed forward, gesturing Blair over to the phone as he reached out to loosen the captain's tie. Damnit! He knew one of these days Simon was going to give himself a heart attack--he just hadn't thought that  _he_  would be the one to goad him into it. He didn't even know why he'd reacted the way he had...

The Sentinel heard Simon's heart racing, and he cursed, laying the man out on the floor as his lungs finally gave up the fight. Pinching the captain's nose, and clearing his airway, Jim began to breathe for him, listening carefully for any sign that Simon might start breathing on his own.

He tuned in to the older man's heart, the muscle still pumping for all it was worth, seemingly ignorant of the fact that it no longer had a fresh source of oxygen to process. Jim could taste the coffee still on his captain's lips, bitter and strange-tasting, but it was a vague thing, disconnected from the reality that Simon could die right here, right on the floor of his own office.

"Ambulance is on it's way."

Jim only heard Blair dimly, but the assurance was enough for him to keep on fighting for his captain's life. He was only dimly aware of the small group of detectives who had gathered around the doorway, peering in with concern.

His own heart almost stopped as Simon's did, and he let out a violent curse, as he moved position slightly, to give himself room to both breathe and beat for the gray-tinged body before him.

"Don't worry, man," Blair whispered, sliding his hands effortlessly to rest over Simon's heart, as Jim shifted again to give the captain more air. "I've got this. Just keep breathing--for _both_  of you."

It was true, Jim  _was_  getting short of breath. His chest was heaving painfully as he tried to keep a rhythm that would save his captain's life.

"Come on, Simon," he whispered between breaths. "Come on, damnit! Don't do this... Come on... Come  _on!_ " He looked up suddenly, pegging someone--he was too out of breath and dizzy to see who--with a murderous glare. "Where the  _hell_  is that ambulance!"

He heard the voice as he turned back to Simon, and he thought dimly that it must be Joel. "They just parked, Jim. They're on their way up now."

Yeah, Jim thought to himself, fighting his own dizziness and wondering just how long he'd been at this, but was "now" going to be too late?

"Just hang on, Simon," he whispered. "Hang on..."

 

Blair watched his partner with concern. This was too familiar. He remembered that night in the alley, when Jim had lost it over Danny Choi's death. If Simon didn't pull through, would it be the same thing all over again?

He was relieved to feel a hand on his back, and looked up to see a small woman in EMT white, gesturing him to let her take over. He did so gladly, watching as another technician guided Jim away from the captain, as the man fixed an oxygen bag to Simon's face and started pumping it in counterpoint to the small woman's rib-cracking compressions. He knew he should expect it, seeing as the call came from the Police Station, but he was suprised to see four EMTs suddenly in the room.

"How long?" one of the EMTs asked sharply.

Blair looked at his watch, trying to estimate. "He stopped breathing about ten minutes ago. Heart stopped maybe... five."

 

Jim fell back, dazed, and tried to gulp in air. It should have been easier now, right? Now that he was only breathing for himself?

So why was his heart still racing? Why couldn't he  _breathe?_

"Jim?" Blair's face swam in front of him, and Jim reached out infinitely weak hands, trying to stop the form's dizzying moves.

"Jim? Man, you okay?"

Jim tried to nod, then tried to shake his head, but neither move was truly accomplished. "I don't..." He tried again. "I can't..."

Blair's hand went to the detective's shoulder comfortingly. "Just breathe, Jim," the young man soothed, in his best Guide voice. "Simon's going to be okay... Just breathe..."

Jim tried, shaking his head again, and found himself panicking. "Can't!" he whispered painfully. "Can't--breathe!"

Blair turned, looking up at another of the EMTs--one  _not_  currently involved in saving Simon's life. "He says he can't breathe," he called, watching the man come over and kneel next to him and his partner. Blair watched as the EMT examined his friend. "He was breathing for Captain Banks," the anthropologist explained. "He's been at it for almost ten minutes."

The EMT cursed as he pulled a stethoscope away from Jim's chest. "Darren," he called to the remaining medic. "I need your help over here. Now."

Blair looked at his partner in shock, as Jim's eyes widened in pain. The detective's breath was coming in shallow gulps now, and Blair reached out a hand, grabbing on to Jim's arm and squeezing painfully.

"Come on, Jim," he whispered. "Come on. Snap out of it!"

 

Jim tried to rouse himself--to find out if Simon was all right. He could vaguely hear the electric whipcrack of the paddles as the EMTs tried to shock Simon's heart back to life. He should keep track of the situation.

Why couldn't he breathe, damnit!? Simon needed him, and he tried to push against the men he could feel crowding around him, tried to see past them to his dying friend...

But it was too late. He felt himself falling into the pain, felt his body collapse around him. Suddenly, all he could hear was the uneven flow of his own blood, the panicked rasping of his own increasingly shallow breathing...

What the hell was this? How could he and...  _Why_  were he and... He felt his heart skip another beat before stepping up its rhythm again, now pounding so furiously in his chest that he was sure it must be heard in the next room. He could feel himself start to detach...

A voice was calling to him, but it was nothing more than a dim buzzing in ears that were too caught up with listening to his body as it faltered...

It almost astonished him as he  _heard_  his own last breath...

 

Blair could only fall back in shock as he watched the second EMT team fit an oxygen bag over Jim's mouth, one of the men taking time to radio for another ambulance. How could this happen? Simon had had a heart attack, right? So what had happened to Jim...?

Too many pieces fell into place as Blair's vacant stare came to rest on a warm ceramic object lying virtually unnoticed on the floor, surrounded by a small, brown puddle of cooling liquid.

"Shit," he whispered painfully. "The coffee."

"What?" Brown had crouched down next to the anthropologist, worried by his silence. "What about it?"

Blair stood, grabbing the fallen coffee mug as he went, and strode across to the coffee maker, sniffing cautiously at the half full pot. "The coffee," he repeated, damning himself for not thinking of it sooner. "Simon said that Wilkins over in IA had been poisoned this morning. They didn't know how the poison was administered." His angry eyes pierced Brown's. "What if the poison was in their coffee?"

Brown looked down at the EMTs, who were positioning both of the afflicted men on the waiting gurneys. They'd managed to get the captain's heart started again, but he knew from the looks on their faces that the EMTs didn't think it would  _stay_  started for long.

He ran a nervous hand over his hair, sighing in frustration. "But why was Ellison affected?"

"He was doing CPR," Blair explained, knowing now that the Sentinel would have been far more sensitive to the poison than a normal man would have been--wishing he'd known it sooner. "The coffee on Simon's lips would have..."

"Christ," Brown whispered. He watched dimly as Jim and Simon were rolled away, and turned back to see Blair gazing worriedly after his partner. "Look, Sandburg," Brown said, a hand on Blair's arm to get his attention. "Follow the ambulance to the hospital, and let me know when you know something." He took the coffee pot from Blair's almost senseless fingers. "I'll start the lab analyzing this stuff. Maybe we can find out something to help them."

Blair nodded vaguely, and Brown suddenly realized that the kid wasn't going to be able to drive himself anywhere.

Luckily, so did Joel Taggart, and Brown flashed the big captain a thankful smile as he stepped forward. "Come on, Blair," Taggart offered, putting a hand on the anthropologist's shoulder. "I'll drive you."

* * *

Joel wasn't in much shape to drive either, as it turned out, but somehow the two men managed to arrive at the hospital only minutes after Jim and Simon had been brought in. Even Joel's badge wasn't enough to get them information that wasn't there yet, so they settled down to wait in a small room just outside of the emergency area.

Taggart looked at the coffee pot in the corner, his stomach twisting slightly. He wasn't going to be drinking coffee for a long time, he thought sadly, glancing up at the clock for the first time since they'd arrived.

Somehow he knew it would be far from the last...

* * *

Blair sat in shock, hardly acknowledging Brown as the detective stepped into the room nearly two hours later. Brown had brought in a sample of Simon's coffee to be analyzed, and the lab at the station was already working on another, but so far, there were no answers. According to the fingerprint lab, only Simon, Blair, and Brown himself had touched that coffeepot.

 _Damnit,_  the anthropologist thought, sucking in a tense breath as another minute ticked off the clock without word from the doctors. Why hadn't he figured it out before Jim could fall victim to this? He'd known something was wrong when Jim had picked that fight with Simon...

He looked up at Brown and Taggart suddenly. "Hey Brown? You have the report on Wilkins's case from this morning?"

Brown nodded curiously. "Back at the station, yeah. Why?"

Blair shook his head. "Something about the way Jim was acting--"

A slim, exhausted young redhead was standing in the doorway, and the look on her face dried up any words Blair might have added to his explanation.

"Doctor?" Joel asked, walking forward to introduce himself. "I'm Captain Taggart." He gestured to the two young men behind him. "Detective Brown and Blair Sandburg."

She nodded heavily, shaking each man's hand in turn. "Dr. Giles," she replied. "Why don't we all have a seat."

Blair was too high-strung right now to sit. "How are they?" he asked tensely.

She shot him a mildly chastising look. "Well, if you're not going to sit, fine. But  _I_  am exhausted." She sank into one of the many chairs in the waiting area, and reluctantly, the three men followed suit.

"Captain Banks has been put on full life support," she began simply, watching Joel's face go slightly ashen. "He ingested a fair amount of the poison, and we're having a hard time clearing it from his system. Using the information you gave us about this particular incident, we were finally able to determine that your IA officer who was brought in earlier today had been poisoned by his breakfast muffin." Giles sighed lightly. "In a way, that was better for him. Captain Banks had nothing in him but the coffee, and it made it that much easier for his body to absorb the poison."

"What can you do for him?" Joel asked quietly.

"Beyond what we're doing? Nothing, I'm afraid... We're trying to identify the poison now, but so far we haven't had much luck."

"What about Detective Ellison?" Brown was surprised that  _he_  had to ask the question, and he watched Blair's drawn, silent face worriedly.

"He's doing much better than the others, actually," she replied encouragingly, watching the young long-haired man before her finally take a decent breath. "He seems to have had only a slight exposure to the poison."

"So he's going to be okay?" Blair asked quickly.

She shook her head, not wanting him to get his hopes up just yet. "The word 'slight' is a relative term, Mr. Sandburg. He's still got cardiovascular control, but he's on a respirator. And I can't guarantee that he's not eventually going to succumb to this completely."

Blair's face went white, and he leaned forward, rocking desperately for a moment. He pegged her with pain-filled eyes. "Can I see him?"

Giles looked at all three men, and nodded. They all needed to see their friends. "We've put them in the same room in ICU," she replied, standing, watching as the men dragged themselves to their feet after her. "I can let you all in for a few moments, but don't expect to stay long."

Blair just nodded dully.

* * *

Five minutes later, he was sure that going up to Intensive Care was a mistake. He found it hard to breathe himself as he watched Jim's chest rising and falling, and realized with a shock that it wasn't Jim that was performing the task.

Simon looked worse, if anything. Even a man who was as large as Simon Banks shouldn't have room in him for that many wires and tubes. Joel went over to stand by his friend, and Blair walked to Jim's side on legs that said they absolutely did not want to be there.

Dr. Giles looked on from the doorway, surprised when Brown made no move to enter. "Detective?" she asked, gesturing him outside as the other two spoke quietly to their unhearing friends. "Can I speak with you for a moment?"

"What is it, Doc?" Brown asked, watching his friends carefully. Blair had hold of Jim's hand now, and was whispering to him insistently. Brown had an eerie feeling of deja vu, remembering Blair's time on the respirator after what the bullpen had dubbed "The Golden Incident." Jim had sat beside the anthropologist's bed for two days, talking about everything and anything, interspersing the nonsense with pleas for Blair to please just wake up.

Blair had, Brown told himself firmly. So would Jim. The detective would never leave a kid like Sandburg to fend for himself, right?

"Detective?"

He looked back at the doctor, shaking himself. He had to focus. There wasn't anything he could do for Jim and Simon now, except find out who had done this to them. "I'm sorry, Doctor," he whispered. "What were you saying?"

"I said I wanted to thank you for bringing in the sample of the poisoned coffee," she repeated gently. "If we can determine what the exact poison is, we'll have a much better chance of reversing the effects."

Brown nodded absently, then turned to her fully, his eyes penetrating. "What are their chances...  _honestly_?"

She sighed again, and her eyes became tight. "Honestly? ...I think that  _if_  he survives, Captain Banks is likely to have a long road to recovery," she stated truthfully. "According to our report, he had no spontaneous respiration and little heartbeat for nearly fifteen minutes before we could get him stabilized. He's had the equivalent of a massive heart attack, and that's nothing to take lightly."

Brown nodded sadly, turning back to see Blair with a tender hand on his partner's forehead and tears in his eyes. "What about Detective Ellison?" he asked.

She shrugged exhaustedly. "I don't even know with him, Detective--honestly." Her tone was suddenly angry, and Brown knew that she was angry at herself and not her patient. "However he absorbed the poison, it wasn't through direct ingestion, so, short of the aggressive dialysis we're already doing, I don't know what to do for him..."

"He was doing CPR on Simon," Brown murmured thoughtfully. "Sandburg thought that might be it."

Giles nodded grimly. "Then these men might be in more trouble than we thought," she stated quietly.

Brown turned back to her. "What do you mean?"

"If this poison is strong enough to cause this sort of reaction with a simple contact like that... It's more powerful than I thought it might be."

* * *

"I'm sorry, Jim," Blair whispered for the hundredth time, his hand running comfortingly over Jim's forehead. "I should have figured it out earlier." He caught himself in a half sob, and stopped. Jim needed him to be strong now. "We'll find out who did this, Jim, but you've got to hang on, okay?" He gripped his partner's arm, fighting the lump in his throat. "Just hang on..."

Joel was suddenly beside him, a large hand reaching out to grasp Jim's arm in solidarity and another squeezing Blair's shoulder in sympathy. "He'll be all right, Sandburg," Joel whispered, turning his head as Dr. Giles opened the door and looked at them both expectantly. "Come on, Blair," Joel said, maneuvering the kid away from the hospital bed. "I think we've overstayed our welcome."

* * *

Ben sat quietly in the day room, wondering if the pain had started for them yet. Probably. Banks was a die-hard coffee drinker--

"Die-hard," he giggled happily. "I like that."

\--and Jonas never forgot his daily muffin.

He stood, walking to the window, looking out across the yard to the wooded area just inside the fence. So many things to find in the woods, he thought, his mind drifting back to the vial still sitting in his room.

So many wonderful pains to find...

* * *

Blair spent the rest of the day at the precinct, joining most of the Major Crimes section in hunting through old files for a clue as to who might be behind this. A rotation of guards had been set up at the hospital--for both Wilkins, and Simon and Jim. Whoever had done this wasn't going to get a chance to finish the job... And if Major Crimes had their way, the culprit wasn't going to stay on the streets long enough to try.

He thumbed through another file, his mind casting back to the report on Wilkins's collapse. He'd been highly agitated before he succumbed--obviously a result of the drug in his system. That explained Jim's reaction to Simon. The Sentinel could have been affected by just the smell of the stuff as it mixed with Simon's coffee.

He didn't know how he could have known about the poison, but it didn't stop the guilt from welling up in his chest. He was supposed to watch Jim's back... There should have been _something_  he could have done to stop this.

Blair sighed deeply as he dropped the file onto his stack of "probables". He'd called a friend to take over his late afternoon class so he could concentrate on the investigation. He wouldn't have done his students any good today anyway, he told himself. Once they'd figured out who had done this--once Jim was back...

Well, class was the furthest thing from his mind right now.

"Anything?" Rafe asked, walking up to lean against Jim's desk, where Blair sat with the mass of old IA files before him.

Blair nodded tiredly, sipping at his can of soda. He'd noticed a lot of sodas around today. Everyone was too leary of the coffee to try it, though they'd determined that only Simon's rich Colombian blend had been tampered with. How someone could have gotten into the station and poisoned it in the first place was something that Brown and his group were working on.

"I've got five cases that both Simon and Wilkins were involved in," Blair replied, handing over the folders. "One of the guys is dead, but the files didn't specify about the others."

Rafe sighed. "At least it's a place to start. We've uncovered a few more, besides these. We'll just have to check them out one by one." He examined the drawn face before him, and smiled gently. "Why don't you go home and get some sleep, Sandburg?" he suggested. "We can take it from here." It was ten o'clock now, and the kid had been going nonstop since he'd come back from the hospital at around one.

Blair poured more caffeine down his throat and shook his head, reaching for another file. "I just want to get through this stack, Rafe," he stated. "Then I'll get back to the hospital. Dr. Giles said she'd kind of forego the visiting hours rules for a few days." He smiled wryly, but Rafe saw no mirth behind the gesture. "I think she just doesn't want the entire Cascade P.D. knocking down the doors."

Rafe's laugh was a little hollow. "No doubt." He reached out to clap a hand on Blair's shoulder. "Hang in there, Sandburg," he whispered comfortingly. "Jim's too stubborn to let something like this get him."

"Yeah. Right." Blair continued to work through the file before him, looking up only as Rafe began to move off. "Hey, Rafe?"

The young detective looked back at him. "Yeah?"

"Thanks, man."

Rafe nodded. "They'll all make it."

Blair prayed he was right as he discarded another dead-end case folder.

* * *

Blair honestly hadn't  _meant_  to spend the entire night in ICU. He'd come in at four a.m., planning to spend just a few minutes--twenty, tops--just making sure that Jim hadn't gotten any worse... Twenty minutes had turned quickly into ninety... He'd taken a seat for only a moment, just closed his eyes for a second--and suddenly it was eight-thirty in the morning.

He stood up, stretching painfully, and put a hand on Jim's arm again. The detective looked paler than he had last night--though it was hard to tell in the perpetually low light of Intensive Care. Blair sighed, his absent gaze fixing on Jim's stubbled cheek.

"How you doing, Jim?" he whispered sadly. "We spent all day yesterday going over old case files," he added. "You know, you guys have got to hire someone to transfer all those old files on to the computers. You've only got the last five years in there now, and Simon's been working here for twelve." He smiled gently. "Seven years is a lot of files to go through. Who knew cops had so many internal conflicts?"

He stood quietly for a moment, just watching as Jim's body received oxygen from the pump beside the bed. He prayed Jim didn't get any worse. He wished the detective would just open his eyes, suddenly bouncing back from whatever this poison was doing to him.

The thought of the poison brought a stab of guilt again. Damnit!  _Why_  hadn't he seen it? Jim might have been able to turn down his sensitivity or... There had to be  _something_  that they could have done! They were able to deal with everything else together, after all.

"I need you to come back, Big Guy," Blair whispered finally. "The only way I'm going to be able to help find out who did this is with your help, you know? You're always saying I can't do anything for myself..."

He was surprised to hear the door open behind him, but even more surprised by the low sob he heard there. He turned quickly, and came face to face with Daryl Banks.

"Hey Daryl," he whispered gently, walking over to put a hand on the kid's shoulder.

"What happened to my dad?" Daryl asked in a tear-filled rasp.

Blair had somehow never found it in himself to lie to this kid. Not in Peru, and certainly not now. He kept silent instead, looking behind the young man, hoping to find Joel, dreading the thought of finding Simon's ex. But all he saw was the tired face of this morning's guard, looking in sadly.

"Who brought you over, Daryl?" Blair asked quietly, leading the young man to his father's bedside, and guiding him into a chair.

"No one," Daryl choked out, tears starting to run down his cheeks as he watched the machines keeping his father alive. "I got a message at school... I... I took the bus."

Blair was instantly suspicious. "No one called your mother's house to tell you?" That was standard procedure. Taggart should have called when he first knew the seriousness of Simon's condition. The bomb squad captain couldn't stand Simon's ex, but he never would have kept this from Daryl.

Daryl sniffled quietly, holding up a folded piece of paper. "No, man... I just... I got this note this morning..."

Blair took the note carefully. It had been a phone call to the school... No name given... "Daryl's father is in ICU at Cascade General. Come immediately." He wondered how that had ever slipped by the school secretary. In Blair's day, if you weren't God himself--with the signature to prove it--you couldn't possibly pull a kid out of class for  _anything._

"Can I keep this note, Daryl?" Blair asked gently. He felt a vague stabbing in his gut, as Daryl simply nodded dejectedly.

"What happened?" the young boy asked.

The simple, tear-filled question was going to take more than a simple "He's very sick." Daryl had been through a lot with his father, and at not quite sixteen years of age, he'd seen a lot more than kids four and five years his senior.

He'd certainly seen a lot more than  _Blair_  had at his age, the anthropologist thought sadly, trying to think of the best way to explain it.

"We think someone has a beef with your dad for an old investigation," he finally settled on. "They slipped something in his coffee."

Daryl looked up in shock, and suddenly realized that he couldn't think of any good reason for Blair to be here alone, looking like he'd slept in one of these cold, unfeeling chairs. A glance at the room's second bed gave him the answer, and his voice cracked as he spoke. "Jim, too?"

Blair sighed painfully. "He was trying to keep your dad alive..." That was all the anthropologist's worry-tightened throat was going to let him say, and he was pitifully grateful when Daryl seemed to just nod and accept it.

"Are they going to be okay?" the boy asked, his voice tiny.

"I don't know, Daryl," Blair answered. "I wish to hell I did."

* * *

Ben got back to the hospital just in time for the Regis and Kathy Lee show. He liked that one--hated Regis, of course, but that Kathy Lee Gifford...

Had the boys been to see their daddies yet? He hoped so. Daryl had seemed awfully upset when he got the note. Seeing him run out of the school to the bus stop made Ben's heart jump a little, as he saw a ghost of the pain begin to grow in the young boy's eyes.

Maybe Jeremy had gotten his phone message. Maybe he was on his way to the hospital now, too.

Now that the pain had started, Ben wasn't sure he wanted it to end. It was such a good thing, after all. Pain.

Such a good thing...

* * *

Blair had called the precinct as soon as Daryl seemed well-settled at his father's bedside. He needed to know why no one had called Daryl before, and he also hoped that the guys might have something more on the investigation.

"Major Crimes."

Brown sounded like he'd been awake all night--and, in truth, Blair figured he probably had. He'd still been going strong, his stamina born of desperation, when Blair had left for the hospital early this morning. They'd figured out that whoever had poisoned Simon and Wilkins had to have come in between three and four-thirty a.m. It narrowed down the number of security cameras they'd have to check, but, so far, no one had been able to come up with any likely suspects.

"Hey, Brown, it's Blair."

The voice at the other end perked up slightly, but there was still an edge of worry to it. "Hey, Sandburg... How are they?"

Blair sighed. "No change," he said simply. "Listen, is Joel around?"

"Yeah, I think he's catching a nap in his office. Let me see."

It was a moment, and Joel sounded like he'd only just fallen asleep, but the big captain answered the phone with an exhausted "Hey, Blair."

"Sorry I woke you up, Joel," Blair began. "Listen, did you try to call Daryl last night--to let him know what was going on?"

"I drove over to the house twice last night, but no one was home... And I didn't want to leave a message on the machine. He picked a lousy day to play hookey."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I went by his school about half an hour ago, but he'd skipped out after first period." Joel began to sound a little helpless. "I don't even know where to begin looking for him."

"I do," Blair said simply. "He's here at the hospital."

"What?"

Something was pulling at Sandburg's mind, and he gave it a minute to come to him. "Wait, Joel... Did you talk to the school secretary?"

"Sure. She just said Daryl hadn't shown up to his second period class. Why?"

Blair didn't answer. It would take too long, and he really wanted Brown and Daryl in on the discussion. "Look, can you and Brown get down here? Something seriously strange is going on."

* * *

"So you're sure you never saw the guy before, Daryl?" Joel asked gently. The four of them sat quietly at the table in the corner of Jim and Simon's room, keeping their voices down for fear that the nurses might kick them out, deciding that a sickroom wasn't a conference area.

"No, man, I told you," Daryl said. "He was young--maybe Blair's age--and he caught up with me between classes and handed me the note. I just hopped the bus and got here as fast as I could."

"You didn't call your mom?" Blair asked, surprised.

Daryl's eyes grew hard. "She and Dad have been fighting for weeks. I didn't think she'd care." The bitterness in his voice was gut-wrenching, and the explanation went a long way toward excusing Simon's recent foul mood.

"Can I call her?" Brown asked quietly, standing up against the kid's denial. "She's going to want to know where you went."

"Yeah," Daryl said tightly. "Fine."

As Brown left to find the phone, Blair turned back to Joel. "You said you drove by the house  _twice_  last night?"

"Yeah."

Blair turned to Daryl, not surprised to see a look of confusion there. "Where did you guys go?"

"To the hockey game," Daryl replied quietly. "Dad left us tickets--guess he was trying to make it up to Mom for fighting with her so much lately."

"Simon gave you guys tickets? When?"

"Well," Daryl began. "He didn't really  _give_  them to us. When I got home from school day before yesterday, there was an envelope in the mailbox. It had one of those tacky 'I'm sorry' cards in it and a pair of tickets to last night's game."

Blair looked confused, and Daryl tried his best to explain. "See, Dad used to do this when he and Mom first got separated. If they were fighting a lot, he'd just send us tickets--to hockey games, or basketball--with a little note apologizing to her."

"Did he sign the notes?" Blair asked. His mind was wondering how there could possibly be a closet romantic hiding in the rough shell of Simon Banks.

"Yeah," Daryl shrugged. He suddenly became very still. "But this one..."

Blair sat back, disgusted. "No signature."

Daryl shook his head. "No... Not even a note--just the card. Man, I didn't even think about it. They've been fighting so much lately, and I thought..."

Taggart put a hand on the kid's shoulder, squeezing comfortingly. "It's okay, Daryl. None of us saw this coming."

 _But some of us should have,_  Blair thought coldly. He should have known that Simon's symptoms were the same as Wilkins's. Well, no, he told himself rationally. He didn't really know what had happened to Wilkins in the first place... But he couldn't shake the feeling that there should have been something he could have done for Jim--

His thoughts were cut off sharply, as he heard a familiar sound behind him. It was a sound he'd heard himself make just six months ago, when he'd finally regained consciousness after two days on a respirator, and he jumped up, running for Jim's bedside, while Joel slipped out to get the doctor.

 

 _There's something in my throat,_  Jim thought with panic.  _Something in my throat, and it shouldn't be there!_ Why _is there something in my throat!?_

"Jim?" Blair's voice was an instant comfort. Blair would get whatever the hell this thing was out of his throat, right? Jim let out an ineffectual whimper at the hot-metal pain, and opened his eyes, momentarily overcome by the power of the light around him--the dim florescent bulb above his bed seeming brighter than day to his sensitive eyes. He squinted for a moment, trying to find Blair in the searing whiteness.

"It's okay, Jim," Blair soothed, running a hand comfortingly up and down Jim's arm. "It's all right. Just don't fight it."  _Don't fight it!? No way, man. You have_ no _idea what this is like!_

"You're on a respirator, Jim," Blair persisted, though Jim was beginning to reach the point of zone out from the sensations in his throat. He could feel something hard and unyielding that ran down his throat, past his vocal chords and into his chest. It was hot, and painful, and he just wanted it  _out!_

He tried to fasten on to Blair's voice, and finally found himself relaxing by small degrees, the panic tapering off slowly. His eyes closed softly, as he gave in to Sandburg's instructions.

"Jim?" the voice was a whisper, as if Blair wanted only Jim to hear it. "Turn down the dial, man. Just focus on something else."

 _Easy for you to say,_  Jim thought.  _I bet_ you _don't have a white hot steel poker sticking into_ your _lungs!_  He tried to talk, but even his lips refused to obey him. He shifted focus as he sensed movement nearby.

"Detective Ellison?" The voice was different, and Jim found himself panicking again. He couldn't feel Blair's hand on his arm anymore. Where was he? Where was Blair? He tried to open his eyes, but the light blinded him again, and they shut quickly in defense.

"Detective Ellison, can you hear me?" A hand--soft and papery and definitely  _not_  Sandburg's--grasped his own. "Just squeeze my hand if you can hear me, Detective."

Jim wasn't going to do anything of the sort. Not until--

"Come on, Jim..."

The soft, pleading voice of his Guide was enough to reassure him, and Jim squeezed lightly.

"You're on a respirator, Detective," the soft female voice explained, as Jim felt a tugging at the side of his mouth. "It's going to hurt here for a minute, but you'll feel better afterward, I promise."

It did more than hurt, but, as Jim felt the poker start to move somewhere in his chest, he heard Sandburg start to talk. It was quiet, as if Blair was muttering to himself, but Jim could hear him clearly, and he clung to the words for dear life as the poker reignited flames on its way back out.

"Just relax, Jim," Blair was whispering. "Don't fight it... Just find the dial and turn it down... Relax... Relax..."

The poker was finally out, and Jim took a stuttering breath, wishing he'd been able to do so sooner. But the breathing didn't last, and he found himself fighting to suck in air for a few endless minutes before his body finally settled into a shallow, rapid rhythm.

He let his eyes open again, and this time, they managed to focus weakly.

"San-b--" That was obviously all he was going to be able to manage, but it was enough for him to dimly see his partner's smile break out.

"Don't try to talk, Detective," the female voice cautioned. Jim turned his head, latching on to the image of a small doctor standing over him. He closed his eyes as the memories came flooding back swiftly.

"Simon?" He wondered if the word was even audible for a moment, but then he heard Blair's soft voice, and knew there was something wrong. The kid had that tone--his you're-too-sick-to-know-the-truth tone.

"He'll be fine, Jim."

 _Liar,_  Jim thought back.

"Detective?"

He didn't bother to try to talk now, simply nodded tiredly.

"Get some sleep, all right, Detective?" He felt that papery hand on his arm again. "You'll feel better when you wake up."

Jim wanted to protest. He wanted to find out what had  _really_  happened to Simon--hell, he wanted to find out what had happened to  _him..._

But whatever he wanted, his body wanted sleep even more, and he found himself drifting off...

* * *

Now that Blair was able to take a deep, true breath, his body began to wonder why he hadn't done so more often in the last twenty-four hours. He spent a few minutes just gratefully sucking in air, missing nearly every word the doctor had to say in the light of this newest development. When she looked up at him questioningly, he realized that he was going to have to try paying closer attention.

"I'm sorry?" he asked finally.

Dr. Giles smiled understandingly. "I said that we're going to keep your friend in ICU for at least another day. If he keeps breathing on his own, and his vitals start inching a little closer to normal, I'll move him to a private room downstairs tomorrow afternoon."

Blair tried to think of something to say, but he was fresh out of ideas. As his mind began to understand that Jim might actually be over the worst of it, his body let him know that he'd gotten two and a half hours of fretful sleep last night--all of it in a chair that wasn't fit to  _sit_  in, much less sleep.

The doctor seemed to recognize this, and she put a hand on Blair's back, propelling him toward the door. "Mr. Sandburg, if your friend continues to improve, he's going to need you around. And I think he'd prefer if you weren't catatonic by the time that happens."

Blair nodded dazedly, and suddenly found himself outside of Jim's room. Joel was smiling quietly.

"You gonna be able to make it back to the loft, Sandburg?"

"Um... Yeah, man," Blair answered. "No problem." He looked over at the large window that looked in on Jim and Simon, and saw Daryl sitting with his shoulders slumped, his small hand gripping his father's larger one for all the kid was worth. "What about--"

"Don't worry about Daryl," Joel said. "I'll stay with him."

Brown walked out from the hospital room, and Blair startled. He hadn't even known that the detective was back from his search for a phone.

"Daryl's mom will be here in twenty minutes," Brown explained, a small, hopeful grin on his face.

Blair watched the two men before him. They both looked as if ten years of hell had just dropped off of their shoulders, and he wondered if he looked the same. There was still a long way to go, but at least  _something_  was looking up.

"Go home, Hair Boy," Brown said, pushing Blair toward the elevator. "I promise we'll call you if anything happens."

* * *

It wasn't until Blair was halfway to the loft that he remembered the card that Daryl had gotten. His mind was working very slowly just now, but he knew that he'd had some little flash of insight when the kid had talked about that card...

He wasn't going to figure it out now, he realized, truly surprised that he'd managed to get this far on the roads without wrapping the Volvo around a tree. He focused in on getting to the garage and up the stairs to the apartment. Then it was getting to the couch, then dropping on to it.

Then all he had to do was hope that he didn't sleep through the next six years of his life...

* * *

Blair nodded to the officer on guard as he stepped into Jim and Simon's room the next morning. He'd stopped by to check on Wilkins as he arrived, and he wasn't encouraged by the news.

Neither was Wilkins's son. Jeremy Wilkins had sat there in shock as Dr. Giles had explained that Jonas's brain activity was falling. He was slipping away, and there was nothing she could do about it...

And Blair had felt slightly guilty that the victim he was most worried about was no longer in danger of meeting the same fate.

Jim didn't look very different this morning--though the absence of the respirator tube in his mouth was a welcome change. Blair snagged the seat beside him, and laid a small hand on his friend's arm.

"Hey, Jim." He got no response, but he knew that Jim was actually in there now. He'd been afraid, those first few hours, that Jim had somehow slipped out while his body wasn't breathing. But he'd seen a glimmer of his partner last night, regardless of the unfamiliar terror in those bright blue eyes.

Now, they just had to wait for him to wake up.

"Dr. Giles should be in to check on you soon," he said quietly. "If you're good, she'll let you move to a room with some  _real_  nurses." His chuckle sounded rusty, though it hadn't been more than a couple of days since he'd used it. "That's the worst part of being in ICU, you know. I wonder if they pick the nurses for their looks..."

He eyed his partner carefully, watching his chest rise and fall of its own accord.

"Wake up, Jim," he pleaded in a whisper. "Come on, man. Just wake up."

* * *

The sleep that had lasted from noon till dawn was obviously not enough for Blair's stressed body, and he woke groggily to find Dr. Giles's hand on his shoulder.

"You awake, Mr. Sandburg?" she asked with an imp's smile.

"Yeah," he affirmed, rubbing his eyes like a child. "Yeah, I'm awake."

Now that he was, he could see Daryl and Joel on the other side of the room.

He looked at his watch and realized that he'd been asleep for two hours already.

"How's Simon doing?" he asked quietly, as Giles headed around Jim's bed brandishing a small penlight.

"Better," she said, a kernel of satisfaction in her voice. "He's getting stronger. But it's slow going--"

She broke off as Jim gave a painful shudder at the sudden light in his eyes. Blair was up and next to him in an instant. "It's okay, Jim," the anthropologist soothed, waiting for Jim to relax. "It's okay."

Dr. Giles frowned. Ellison's eyes were still widely dilated. They weren't reacting quite as well as she'd hoped they would. Maybe complete recovery in forty-eight hours  _was_  a little much to ask. She leaned forward and spoke in a quiet tone.

"Detective Ellison?"

Blair watched as Jim winced at the volume, and realized that his partner's senses had to be going crazy right now. "Come on, Jim," he murmured, low enough that it might have sounded like a prayer to the doctor--and probably sounded like Armageddon to Jim. "Come on, man. Just turn it all down."

"Right," Jim replied sarcastically, earning a confused look from Dr. Giles. Still, after a moment he seemed to gain some control and opened his eyes, squinting only slightly in the low light. He turned his head immediately toward his partner.

"Hey, Big Guy," Blair whispered. "How you feeling?"

"Great question, Sandburg," Jim returned irritably. He smiled wanly in response to Blair's satisfied grin. "Like hell, I think."

"'Like hell' isn't going to get you out of ICU, Detective," Dr. Giles said, watching the man's eyes carefully as they tracked toward her. Not bad--a little sluggish, but considering what he'd been through in the last two days, not too bad at all.

The doctor was cute, Jim thought. Red hair--always a plus, in his book--and soft gray eyes. He gave her a semi-dazzling smile. "Well, how about hell with cable TV?"

"Whoa, Jim," Blair laughed. "I think jokes like that might earn you  _more_  time in here, not less."

Jim shrugged, his muscles protesting, and craned his head a little farther, catching sight of the rest of the room. "Daryl?" he called weakly.

The kid walked over to him, wiping at his eyes as Giles moved out of his way so he could stand by Jim's head. "Hey, Jim," Daryl greeted him, his voice dull and tired.

"How's your dad?"

Daryl shrugged, tears forming again, and Jim's gaze panned up slightly to see Joel shaking his head in despair.

Jim sighed and clasped Daryl's hand weakly. "You just be here for him, Daryl, you hear me?" He smiled reassuringly. "He's tough, you know? He'll make it."

Jim wasn't ready for Daryl's next move, and he struggled not to gasp as the kid wrapped desperate arms around him. He stroked Daryl's hair quietly for a moment, before he was released.

"Come on, Daryl," Joel whispered, taking the kid by the shoulders. "Let's go get something to eat."

As soon as they'd left, Jim turned to the doctor. His voice was stronger now, and his eyes demanded answers. "What happened?"

She tilted her head. "You were poisoned."

Jim's gaze swung toward Blair questioningly.

"Whoever poisoned Wilkins got some of the same stuff into Simon's coffee," Blair explained. "You must have been affected when you were giving him mouth to mouth."

Jim's mind cast back to that frightening episode, and he found himself murmuring his thoughts. "The coffee tasted bitter... and sour."

Dr. Giles looked at him, uncomprehending.

Blair ignored the doctor's strange look. "Sour? ...Could you figure out what was in it, you think?"

Jim closed his eyes, trying to recall the sensation of that tainted coffee on his lips... "I don't know, Chief," he finally whispered, sounding exhausted all over again. "I've never tasted anything like that before..."

Giles decided she was better off not asking what the hell was going on, so she leaned forward instead. "We've sent a sample to the regional labs in Seattle. We couldn't get a fix on the poison here."

Jim tracked his eyes back to her carefully, a little distressed that his vision didn't seem to be clearing. When he spoke, he felt he could still sense the memory of that respirator tube. "How's Captain Banks?"

She shrugged. "We won't know for a couple of days," she replied simply. "He's getting stronger, but Mr. Wilkins seemed to be improving yesterday, and he's taken a definite turn for the worse this morning."

Jim just stared at her for a moment. Whoever was after the two policemen seemed to have gone to great lengths to set this up... He swallowed painfully and turned back to his partner. "Have the guys come up with anything yet?"

Blair started to answer, but Dr. Giles put a firm hand on Jim's arm. "Detective, I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut this meeting short. You're in no condition to sit here discussing this--"

"Doctor," Jim answered calmly. "I appreciate your concern, but I need to get to work trying to find out who did this. If we find the poisoner, we'll have a better chance of doing something for Captain Banks and Lieutenant Wilkins."

"And  _you_  will have a better chance of relapse," she replied firmly, casting a warning glance at Blair, who watched the proceedings silently. "I would like to move you out of ICU, but if you don't rest, I'll keep you here--and your friend  _out_ \--for as long as I can." She pegged Jim with a glare that told him she was deadly serious. "I will not have you undoing any progress you've made in the last twelve hours."

Jim sighed and sank back further into his pillow. He  _was_  tired--hopelessly tired. But he was also worried about Simon, and Daryl, and Jonas... His eyes closed against his will, and he felt himself beginning to drift. He didn't even hear Dr. Giles as she turned to his partner.

"Mr. Sandburg," she said quietly, moving away from the sleeping detective's bed. "Can I ask you to please leave for a few hours."

 _Well-phrased,_  Blair thought.  _But you're not asking._  "I need to get down to the station," he offered.

"Good. I'd like to see him get a few hours of solid sleep before I move him. His system is still recovering, and he's going to be very weak--and very susceptible to losing the ground he's gained since we took him off the respirator."

Blair nodded. It wouldn't do Jim any good to try to go over what they had on the case now, anyway. Because what they had was exactly nothing. He headed for the door, holding it open for the pretty redhead.

"I'll call you when we're ready to move him downstairs, Mr. Sandburg."

"Thanks." Blair turned to go, and turned back just as quickly. "And can you call the station if there's any change in Captain Banks's condition?"

Giles nodded, wondering at the pair of men she had in that Intensive Care room. They seemed to be the center of Major Crimes's world...

And she desperately hoped that that center didn't collapse.

* * *

Ben hung up the phone quietly, walking away from it so the nurses couldn't catch him. Everything was going well. He liked talking to the nurses at General. They were nicer than the nurses here.

He wondered how many of them were getting to see the pain. More of them could, if he could get over there.

Maybe the whole police department would come out and enjoy it. Like they had back then...

He turned back to his room, taking the vial and slipping it into his jacket pocket.

"Hey, Ben!"

It was Kelly. She was one of the nice nurses.

"Where're you going?"

"To the movies," he answered, ducking his head shyly. He was always shy around her. She was pretty.

"Don't forget to sign out this time," she advised. "You really scared me when I couldn't find you night before last."

"I won't forget, Kelly."

"Have fun."

 _Oh, I will,_  Ben thought, his smile growing.

Pain is always fun.

* * *

Blair mulled over the case as he drove to the station, his mind carefully floating the various aspects of it, waiting to see how they'd fall together. The card that Daryl had received the day before the poisonings--the one that had sent him so conveniently to the hockey game--featured prominently in the anthropologist's thoughts. And the way Daryl had found out about his father's condition...

He wondered suddenly how Jonas Wilkins's son had been notified. Was it as shocking, as unexpected? If the poisoner was behind Daryl's convenient communiquÈs...

Blair's mind jumped slightly. This was as much a punishment for the families as for the men themselves--more, in fact. After all, Simon and Wilkins weren't aware enough to see what was going on. It was their sons who were paying the price. He pulled out his cellphone on a hunch, dialing the station.

"Major Crimes." Rafe had joined the ranks of the unsleeping. Blair could almost  _hear_  the bags under the detective's eyes.

"Hey, Rafe," he began, pausing to make a left turn. "Is Jonas Wilkins still married?"

The question took the other man aback slightly. "No... His wife died a couple of years ago. Cancer, I think."

"And Simon just got divorced this year," Blair mused quietly.

"So?"

Blair hadn't noticed that he'd said that last out loud, and he shook his head to clear it, waiting for the pieces of this puzzle to finish falling. He didn't have the complete picture yet, but he was getting there.

"Listen, I'll be over there in a couple of minutes," he said briefly. "I think I've got an idea of what's going on here."

* * *

Cascade General was bigger than his hospital, Ben thought, as he walked quietly past the admitting desk. He knew where he was going. He'd been here back then...

The thought brought a stab of the pain, and he smiled at it. The pain was the only thing left, now. If he let the pain grow, it would finally grow into the happiness that he knew he was missing.

He fingered the vial in his pocket for a moment. He would have to get in to see them. As he walked past a door, and read the label on it, he knew that wouldn't be hard.

He'd always wanted to be a nurse.

* * *

Blair headed straight for Jim's desk, picking up the files he'd found only two days ago, sitting tensely as he fished through them. The puzzle pieces were still falling for him, and it seemed that others in the bullpen noticed. Brown walked over quietly, watching him for a moment as he shuffled through the files.

"Got something, Hair Boy?"

Blair nodded distractedly. "Maybe... I was thinking about that card that Daryl got. That means that whoever it is who's doing this must know Simon pretty well. And I talked to Wilkins's son today. He said he'd gotten a message on his answering machine--just saying that his father was at General in ICU. It couldn't have been the station calling. Someone would have told him what was going on, but he didn't find out until he asked the guard at Wilkins's hospital room."

Brown wasn't putting it together. "So?"

Blair looked up briefly, almost annoyed. "So I think we're not looking for an ex-cop. I think we're looking for the  _son_  of an ex-cop. A  _dead_  ex-cop."

"Because the sons are being made to suffer..." Brown shook his head, a little surprised that Sandburg had come up with such a strange, but plausible, scenario to explain this. "Damn, Sandburg," he whispered. "You're good."

"Yeah, well," Blair passed off easily, standing and heading for Rafe's desk. "It isn't going to mean much if I can't find the file I'm looking for."

* * *

Taggart looked up expectantly as a small, thin male nurse came into the room. He looked vaguely familiar to Joel, but then, a few days of sitting in ICU would make  _any_  nurse look familiar.

Daryl had gone with his mom for lunch. Joan was still a prickly one, but she'd sat quietly at Simon's bedside for a few minutes at a time, genuinely worried.

 _Maybe if she'd been as worried before, they'd still be married,_  Joel thought coldly.

The young nurse looked Simon's chart over carefully, muttering quietly to himself, before writing down a few notes, and moving on to Jim's bedside.

As he leaned over to check one of the monitors, the young man was surprised to see Jim's eyes snap open, darting around as they tried to find the source of the noise.

"It's okay, Detective Ellison," the young nurse soothed. "I'm just seeing how you're doing." He touched the detective's arm lightly. "Just relax and try to get some sleep, okay?"

Jim thought he recognized that face. No... No, not  _that_  face. Another face, older... But like that one...

"Just relax, Detective," the voice repeated, the movement of the kid's soft hand against his arm causing Jim's eyelids to slide closed. He tried to cling to the memory of that face as he drifted slowly off again...

* * *

"There it is!" Blair jerked open the file and turned to Brown, who was still hovering curiously. "Did you know Al Cowley?"

Brown shook his head. "Before my time. He and Simon were partners before Simon got bumped up to the big office. Died in a drug bust, I think."

Blair nodded, scanning the file. "And there was an investigation after his death... Rumors that Cowley had been stealing drugs from lockup." He sat back in amazement as more puzzle pieces fell. "And he had a son... He was Daryl's age when his father died."

"And you think  _he's_  behind this?" Brown asked incredulously. "Sandburg... That's one hell of a leap--even for  _you._ " He shook his head. "No, come on, Sandburg. The kid wouldn't be more than twenty-two now. How could he have engineered all this?"

Blair looked up with eyes years older than the face that held them. "You'd be surprised what a kid will do for revenge, Brown--no matter how young."

* * *

Dr. Giles stepped into the ICU room, wondering how the police captain waiting there was going to take the news she had.

"Captain Taggart?"

The massive explosives expert rose at the gravity in the doctor's voice. "Doctor? What is it?"

She sighed, walking quietly back toward the hallway, gesturing for Taggart to follow. After a quiet squeeze of Daryl Banks's shoulder, he did.

"What is it?"

Giles took a deep breath. "Jonas Wilkins died this afternoon." She watched the shock of it hit the man before her, not wanting to add to his burden, but unable to keep the truth to herself. "Given the progression of the poison through his system, and the highs and lows he'd hit before brain death occurred, I'm afraid that Captain Banks is likely to take another... permanent... turn for the worse within the next ten to fifteen hours."

Joel stood still, trying to get his mind around the concept. He shook himself briskly, focusing back in on the tiny woman before him. "Have you had any word back from the Seattle office about the poison?"

"It's rare," she began, leading the captain to a nearby room. She was afraid he'd fall down before she was finished, and she wanted him sitting while he heard the rest of it. "It appears to be wholly organic, but they can't get a clear identification."

"And the Bureau hasn't gotten back to us yet," Taggart mused. "But, if they can figure out exactly what it is--"

"I'm afraid that knowing for sure isn't going to help," she told him gently. "They're already being treated for as many variables as we can manage, but this concoction is such a jumble of active agents..."

Joel just sat, shoulders bent, for a long moment. "So, Simon's got no chance?"

"There's a slim chance that Wilkins's age had something to do with the effect. Captain Banks is an active man--a good deal younger than Wilkins... But I won't lie to you and say you should count on that relative youth to get him through."

Joel nodded painfully. "And Detective Ellison?"

Giles shook her head. "We'll have to wait and see, Captain," she said carefully. "I'm sorry. I wish I could have some more concrete answers for you, but this is uncharted territory for us."

* * *

Daryl looked up as the male nurse that Joel had seen earlier walked in again. This time he was carrying a tray with two hypodermics on it. The nurse turned carefully, trying to keep Daryl from seeing his face, trying to look like he wasn't.

"What're those for?" Daryl wasn't sure he really cared, but he was getting nervous in this silent sickroom.

The nurse set the tray on the table beside Detective Ellison's bed. "Just something to help them both sleep," he assured the boy.

As the young nurse raised the needle in his hands to Ellison's IV dispenser, Daryl caught a glimpse of the man's profile.

The young boy rose, as he recognized the face--

* * *

Joel rose slowly, to return to the hallway. "I need to call the station, and..."

Doctor Giles gripped his arm in sympathy. "Of course, Captain. You can use the phone at the nurses' station."

 

She left him dialing the phone, and headed for Banks and Ellison's room, dreading looking in on them. She wondered if they would both simply fade away on her. Fists clenched at her sides. Damnit! Who would do this to someone else? Who could  _hate_  that much?!

As she pushed open the door, she heard Banks's son raise his voice in anger.

"What are you doing to him!?"

"Excuse me?" Giles asked, stalking into the room as a nurse she'd never seen before pushed the plunger of his syringe home into Detective Ellison's IV line, holding off the boy, who was fighting to get to the needle. "Who are you and what are you doing?"

The young nurse--suddenly confronted on two sides--abruptly tried to run the doctor down as he made for the door, slamming the guard into the wall as he ran for the elevator.

 

"Captain!" Joel turned at Dr. Giles's panicked yell, and was just in time to see the nurse he'd seen earlier, as the man slammed Simon and Jim's guard into the wall and ran for the end of the hall. Joel got on his radio, calling down to the guard who had been watching over Wilkins, as he took off after the nurse.

* * *

Blair took a deep breath as Brown slammed down the phone.

"The kid's been a voluntary patient at Woodhill's mental hospital for the last two years--gets to come and go pretty much as he pleases. The nurse on duty says he went out this morning and hasn't been back." Brown was grabbing for his jacket and keys as he spoke. "She also said he'd spent most of last night watching videos of him and his father."

"Damnit..." Blair headed out with the large detective, nearly running into the man as Brown stopped cold in the middle of the bullpen, listening carefully to the police radio that Blair was having a hard time concentrating on.

"Shit!" Brown took off at a run, ignoring the elevator and heading for the stairs.

"What?!"

"Someone was trying to get to Jim and Simon," Brown explained, breathing hard as they descended the stairs. "Dressed as a nurse... Took out the guard in front of the room..."

"Are they okay?"

Brown shook his head. "Right now, I'm interested in getting a few minutes alone with this kid. If anything's happened..."

* * *

"Clear!"

Daryl stood outside the hospital room, watching as Jim's body jerked under the electric current. God... What if...

"Nothing."

"All right, let's go again at 300... Clear!"

"...I've got a rhythm... faint... I think he's coming back."

 

Giles stood back slightly, taking a deep breath. "Where are those blood test results?"

"They're coming, Doctor."

"Get him on dialysis immediately. Whatever it is this time, I want it cleaned out-- _now!_ "

* * *

Brown took the streets at sixty the entire ten mile trip, and Blair still thought it was too slow. He wanted to know what was going on. Had Cowley gotten to Jim and Simon before he was stopped? Was it too late already?

"Come on," he whispered, unheard over the roar of the sirens. "Come on, come on..."

* * *

Ben Cowley sat tensely in the small closet he'd managed to find, nails digging into his palm, trying to recapture some of the pain, as drops of blood made themselves visible on the folded sheets beside him. The pain should have kept him focused. Why wasn't it? Why couldn't he focus?

He had to get away, but he knew now that running for it would end it too quickly. Damnit! He could hear the commotion outside as the police descended on the hospital. He had to get away--get another chance at Banks--the pain had to continue!

* * *

Blair jumped from the cruiser before it stopped, stumbling slightly as he ran for the main entrance, where three officers kept watch. One of them--a beat cop that Blair knew well--waved him inside, and he ran for the stairs. He couldn't wait for an elevator. Wouldn't have been able to stand still that long anyway. He had to get upstairs...

* * *

The noise had settled down, and Cowley slipped quietly out of the closet, heading quickly for the stairwell. He had to get out... Just get to the garage, and he'd figure out a way to get out from there...

His hand was bleeding freely now, where the scalpel he'd liberated dug deeply into the flesh of his palm. It was a good weapon for him. He could use  _it_  to help even more people enjoy the pain.

 _Focus,_  he told himself.  _Focus... Focus on the pain..._

* * *

Blair's ascent made too much noise for him to hear the young man's approach, and Cowley was on top of him before he knew it. He almost moved to the side to let the nurse pass...

Until he saw the blood flowing freely from the younger man's hand, and the scalpel that had obviously started it flowing. He stood his ground, faintly recalling his words to Brown.  _You'll be surprised what someone will do for revenge._

 

Cowley wasn't ready for the interruption of his forward progress, and he plowed into the man below him, sending them both tumbling--the knife in his hand still held firmly.

* * *

Brown caught up with Taggart on the fourth floor.

"Captain! What's going on?"

"Whoever was after Simon tried to get in and finish the job--dressed as a nurse."

"We think it's Al Cowley's kid."

Joel turned on him, shocked. "Ben? You've got to be kidding me!"

"No, sir. He's been in Wood--" Brown broke off sharply as he heard a series of clattering thumps from the nearby stairwell. They ran, throwing open the door--

And saw a jumble of limbs at the fourth floor landing, and a growing pool of blood. The mass of limbs wasn't moving, and Brown jumped forward swiftly as he recognized Sandburg's long, curly mane.

"Jesus!" Joel's exclamation was quiet, and he was immediately turning to find a nurse.

"Sandburg?" Brown pulled the top body away, hissing as the movement caused cries of pain from both the men before him. There was blood everywhere, and, for a moment, Brown had a hard time deciding who was the worse injured--until the site of the scalpel sticking out of the unknown man's chest decided it for him.

As he tried to take a look at the kid, Sandburg's eyes were slowly coming into focus, and he started violently as they locked on Brown. The detective held him down as Blair shouted slightly, trying to raise his head.

"Easy, Sandburg," Brown soothed, alarmed by the blood that soaked the kid's chest. "Easy. Doctor's coming." Someone had moved the other man, and had come forward to help with Sandburg.

Blair resisted Brown's movements for a moment. "I'm okay, man," he insisted, feeling the aches and pains of his two flight tumble. "I'm all right... What about Cowley?"

Brown looked up in surprise, only to have Joel nod to him. How Sandburg had managed to find Cowley at all...

"Hey, man," Blair protested weakly from his position on the stairs. "You going to let me get up, or what?"

Brown looked him over again, though the kid was already struggling to his feet a little stiffly. "We'll get you checked out, and then--"

Sandburg shook his head, pushing past the surprised cops and striding unevenly toward the elevator. "I've got to see Jim first."

"Sandburg, he's fine," Joel returned, knowing it couldn't be true, but trying to head the anthropologist off at the pass anyway. "Just let somebody check you out, okay?"

Blair nodded distractedly. "In a minute." Taggart could do little more than follow the kid into the car as the elevator doors finally opened.

* * *

Ben smiled. The pain had grown... It was everything now. The everything that he had always known it would become. It started at his chest, radiating out in wonderful, centering waves. He reveled in it, crying out in joy as it intensified, blocking out the feeling of someone lifting him, setting him down on a gurney...

It was over now. The pain had finally blotted out everything else. Why hadn't he seen this before? This was definitely the way to go...

With a smile on his face, he surrendered to it.

* * *

Blair leaned against the wall of the elevator, willing it to go faster. It was only three floors, for God's sake! How could it take so long? His head hurt, his back hurt, there was a broken-glass pain in his stomach and a molten-lead pain in his chest, but none of that mattered right now. None of it mattered because he had to make sure that Cowley hadn't used that knife on Jim...

He could feel Joel's eyes on him, watching him, waiting for him to drop. But that wasn't going to happen. He couldn't stop until--

Finally! He was already heading out of the car as the doors opened, trying not to run as he hit the floor. He needed to get to Jim, needed to make sure--

He came to a dead stop as he saw the crash cart being wheeled out of his friend's room as a tearful Daryl looked on.

The doctor came next, pausing in shock as she got a look at him.

"Mr. Sandburg! What--"

"What happened?" Blair asked quickly, heading past her into Jim's room, stopping again as he saw the tubes and wires and... He closed his eyes, swaying back a little from the sight.

He didn't feel Joel ease him into the chair by the bed, didn't hear the doctor asking him if he was all right. It took a moment for him to come to his senses, and when he did, he avoided the sight before him, turning instead to Dr. Giles. "What happened?"

 

She took a deep breath as she looked down at the man, his face bruised, his clothing torn and soaked in blood. She realized quickly that he wasn't going to let her check him out until she told him everything. "Your poisoner got another chance at him." Blair dropped his head into his hands as she continued. "Captain Banks's son thought to pull out the IV as soon as he realized what had happened, but I'm afraid Detective Ellison has received a concentrated dose of the poison--whatever it is."

"Is he going to be okay?"

"I honestly can't say right now, Mr. Sandburg," she offered helplessly. "We've got him back on life support, and we're running his blood through dialysis, but for now... We'll just have to wait."

Joel crouched down beside the anthropologist, gripping Blair's arm. "Come on, Sandburg," he rallied quietly. "Why don't you get cleaned up?"

All the wind had gone out of Blair's sails now, and he nodded, hissing a little painfully as Joel helped him up from the chair. He couldn't believe, after all this--after Jim was getting _better_ \--that things had managed to go so wrong again.

 _Come on, Jim,_  he begged silently, barely feeling it as he was led to a nearby room, where the doctor began to close the two deep gashes Cowley had been able to inflict.  _Come on, man. You fought it once..._

But was once going to be all Jim could do?

* * *

It was two days after that that Simon finally woke up, one day more before Jim's condition was upgraded to serious. The wait took its toll on the entire department, but they focused on finding out the truth behind Ben Cowley's actions, and tried desperately to hope for the best.

Even as he spent most of his time at Jim's bedside, Blair managed to keep track of everything. He'd read the report on Cowley--read about the kid's breakdown after his father was killed, his increasing self-violence, his love of botany that had provided him with the tools and knowledge to take a dozen plants from the mental hospital's backyard and turn them into a lethal cocktail.

Sandburg wondered what his own response might have been if Naomi had died when he was young. He hoped he'd never have gone off the deep end like Cowley had, and he figured that it was more the circumstances in which Cowley had lost his father than the loss itself that caused the boy to grow up to be a killer. Ben's mother had committed suicide when he was twelve, and that, combined with the department's apparent betrayal of his father after the older Cowley's death, had precipitated his breakdown.

Brown had told Sandburg that Ben Cowley had died with a smile on his face. The drop down those stairs had ended in Cowley's scalpel finding its owner's heart, though it had managed to rake over Blair's body a couple of times in the process. But stitches would eventually come out, scars would fade to nothing...

He just wondered when the  _real_  pain was going to stop.

 

He sat in the ICU ward alone these days. Simon had been moved into a private room on another floor the day after he'd woken up, and now, three days after that, Blair was beginning to lose hope that Jim would ever come out of this. Dr. Giles kept repeating the standard phrase--"he's holding his own"--but Sandburg had to wonder how long that would last.

At least Jim's heart was beating on its own, Blair thought. The Sentinel couldn't breathe without an awful lot of help, but, if his heart was still beating, there was still a chance...

Cowley had caused a lot more pain than he had planned, Blair thought sadly, standing to walk over to the window, stretching a body that had spent too long in that chair. Ben had only hoped to punish Simon and Wilkins's sons, but he'd managed somehow to take Jim down, and Blair had been caught up in that punishment as well.

"God, Jim," he whispered quietly. " _When_  are you going to wake up?"

* * *

It took a long time for Jim to figure out how to open his eyes again. He remembered--if vaguely--that it had been hard the last time he tried. He also remembered that breathing had been difficult as well, so he tested it, trying to take a deep breath, and finding that there was nothing to stop him.

 _So far, so good,_  he thought.  _Now, let's try the eyes again._

They opened slowly, and sought to focus on the bed across the room. Simon's bed, he remembered. Simon, who'd been poisoned. Simon, who was dying. When his eyes realized that the bed was empty, his brain began to panic.

A warm hand touched his arm briefly, causing him to turn his gaze violently from the empty bed, his eyes snapping up to find his partner's.

"Hey, Jim," Blair whispered, smiling gently. "We were wondering when you'd wake up."

Jim didn't care for the teasing, and he swallowed hard, trying to build up enough moisture to speak. Sandburg seemed to realize this, and turned quickly, coming back with a glass of water. Jim sucked at the straw, drawing the water in carefully as he fought his growing panic.

"Simon?" he was finally able to whisper, his voice sounding like shards of glass as the flash of pain in his partner's face caused him to close his eyes in grief. Blair's hand was back on his arm immediately.

"Jim," he said quietly. "Don't worry. He's okay."

The detective opened his eyes again in disbelief. Simon had been in worse shape than he--how could the captain suddenly be better?

"Honestly," Blair promised. "They moved him to a regular room downstairs." He didn't bother to tell his friend that that had been nearly a week ago now. He watched the Sentinel carefully for a moment, watching his eyes as the truth of Blair's statement sank into them, and Jim finally relaxed. "How you feeling?"

Jim licked his lips. "Tired," he managed finally, already drifting off again.

Sandburg smiled in return. "Go back to sleep. I'll fill you in on everything later."

* * *

**_A week later..._ **

Jim felt he had finally managed to catch up on all the particulars of the case, in between his frequent and seemingly endless naps. Dr. Giles had told him that he'd have to deal with the weakness for a few more weeks yet, but at least he was in a regular room, with only half the number of machines they'd kept him on upstairs.

He'd listened amusedly over the past few days, as his partner told him about Ben Cowley, and about how they had pieced the whole case together. Brown had told Jim that Blair was the one to do all the guesswork. The kid was good, he thought proudly. Maybe he really  _should_  end up in the Academy.

It had been up to Joel to tell Jim how Sandburg had handled things while the detective was unconscious. The massive captain had said that Blair never once gave up, and that he never stopped trying to find the answers. Joel never got the whole story out of Sandburg as to what had happened in that stairwell, but the forty-three stitches that the kid had accrued from it were tugging at Jim's mind.

As he waited for his partner to return from an afternoon class at the University, Jim knew he would have to find out that story for himself.

Blair breezed in twenty minutes later, with a smile on his face. He was teaching again, and Simon was going home today, and, if he was very lucky, Jim would be home by the weekend. He sat down, and he and Jim chatted until the sun began to set outside the window.

Jim watched his partner appraisingly for a moment, deciding that now was as good a time as any.

Blair caught the detective's gaze and gave him a quizzical look. "What's up?"

Jim grinned. "Nothing. Just thinking that you look awfully spry for a kid who took a header down two flights of stairs a couple of weeks ago."

As it always did, Blair's face fell slightly at the mention of that day.

Jim continued as if he'd never noticed. "So you never told me what happened."

Sandburg shrugged, taking a seat. "Nothing. He was running down the stairs, I was running up."  _Not fast enough to help you, of course. Just like I wasn't fast enough to help you in Simon's office._

Jim saw the guilt in his partner's eyes, and studiously ignored it. "Oh, come on, Chief. There's got to be more to it than that."

Blair shook his head. "Nope. That's it."

"Well, I for one am glad that all you got were a few cuts and bruises," Jim offered, watching again as the guilt flashed, wondering if, this time, Sandburg was finally going to open up about what was bothering him.

His partner's voice was too bitter. "A lot less than  _you_  got," he gritted, turning his blue eyes on Jim as if in entreaty. "Jim, I'm sorry--"

"Chief, you don't have to be."

Blair looked at his partner--still hooked up to too many monitors, still pale and weak--and was amazed by Jim's ability to just let things go. Hell, even Naomi could learn a few things from Jim. "No, Jim, I do. If I had just clued in to what was going on earlier, I could have--"

"Done nothing about it," Jim finished sternly. "Look, Chief. I know you're good at feeling guilty, but this is ridiculous. How could you possibly have known?"

Blair hung his head, shaking it sadly.

"Just do me a favor, okay, Sandburg?"

The younger man looked up, eager to make it up to his partner. "Yeah, Jim?"

"Go home and get some sleep," Jim answered simply, a sly smile breaking out as his partner geared up to argue, a little shocked by the abrupt shift in the conversation. "Dr. Giles is coming in to check on me pretty soon... And I  _don't_  need an audience."

Blair smiled back, glad to have his partner again. He'd almost let himself lose hope that it would ever happen, but he knew now, if anything had happened to Jim...

"Sandburg?" Jim caught Blair's eye again, as the Sentinel saw a flicker of pain run through his Guide. "I'm okay, Chief." He reached out to squeeze his partner's arm briefly. "Now get out before my doctor gets here, all right?"

Blair rose, smiling lightly. "Just don't do anything too strenuous, Jim, okay?" he asked, watching his partner flush slightly. "You want to be out of here by Monday, right? The loft is getting pretty quiet without you, after all."

"With you around?" Jim asked incredulously. "I doubt it."

"What, man?" Blair returned, an indignant look on his face. "I have to have somebody to talk  _to,_  after all. You think I talk to  _myself?_ " He walked out, keeping his words low, but knowing that his Sentinel could hear him. "Man, nobody talks to  _themselves..._  That's crazy... Isn't it?"

Jim's welcome laughter chased him all the way to the elevators.

* * *

_The End_


End file.
